Page:The gilded man (El Dorado) and other pictures of the Spanish occupancy of America.djvu/218

204 groups are moving around and above him. The oppressive feeling of desertion changes into one of pleasure in being the plain guest of a simple people."

The population of Acoma has not changed much in three hundred and forty years, for Casteñeda speaks of two hundred braves. The people prepared to defend themselves against the Spaniards, but no battle took place, the fear of the horses inducing a speedy peace. It seems, however, that Alvarado did not stay in Acoma, and he was quite right in not trusting to the peaceful disposition of the people, for once on the rock the same fate might easily have met him that, fifty-eight years later, overtook the Maestro de Campo Zaldivar and his men at that place. Three days' journey from Acoma brought him to Tiguex, where he met a friendly reception. Tiguex (pronounced Tiguesh), according to Casteñeda, was a group of twelve smaller pueblos situated on a large river, in a valley about two leagues, or five miles, wide. From that place Alvarado sent a messenger to Coronado with the advice to remove his winter quarters there.

Tiguex has been looked for at various places in New Mexico: on the eastern Rio Puerco, at the site of the present Santa Fé, and at other points. I have marked as the situation of this pueblo group the banks of the Rio Grande near Bernalillo, or rather between Algodones and Albuquerque. The very name points thither, for the Tiguas Indians call themselves Tiguex, and they formerly lived in a chain of larger and smaller pueblos along the Rio Grande. They were divided into two groups: a northern group, of which I know of twelve ruins between